Omnichannel in Retail – A Practitioner’s Perspective

Customers want seamless omnichannel experiences

Today’s consumers expect complete freedom in choosing where and how they shop. The Omni-commerce 2025 study shows that 71% of Polish people buy from the same brands both online and in-store, while for 75% of shoppers, brand availability across all sales channels is an absolute must. Customers increasingly value solutions that connect the digital and physical worlds: 29% of respondents cite the ability to return online orders in-store as a major benefit, while 26% appreciate the option to view a product in a physical location before purchasing it online (and increasingly, vice versa).The trend is clear: shoppers want a fluid, integrated shopping experience, regardless of the sales channel.

At the same time, there are warnings for brands that ignore these expectations. A global Adyen report indicates that 70% of consumers would stop shopping with a brand that fails to offer convenient, modern omnichannel solutions. Moreover, 61% of customers say they are more loyal to brands that allow, for example, in-store returns of online purchases. The reality, however, is that only 23% of companies currently offer such functionality. This highlights a significant gap between customer expectations and the actual capabilities of many retailers. How is that possible, given that the importance of an omnichannel strategy is widely recognized, and the technology appears to be within reach?

Why is omnichannel so hard to implement?

Despite strong awareness of market needs, many large retail chains in Poland face serious barriers in implementing an omnichannel strategy. Industry research shows that 78% of retailers struggle with integrating outdated IT systems, and 71% face data silos that prevent different sales channels from “talking” to each other. Among the most common technical challenges identified during system analyses are:

• Legacy Monolithic systems. Most large retail chains have relied for decades on extensive ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), POS (Point of Sale), or WMS (Warehouse Management System) solutions developed 20–30 years ago. These monolithic systems—tightly coupled across modules such as sales, warehouse, and CRM—were once an advantage but now slow down integration and change.
  
  Modifying one function often requires changes across the entire system, making agile business adaptation nearly impossible. Worse still, 58% of companies still depend on outdated technologies (such as the “immortal” COBOL), for which specialists are scarce, and maintenance costs often exceed potential modernization gains. Paradoxically, the most mature companies—with massive historical IT investments—often face the biggest challenges. Their infrastructures are complex, expensive to modify, and carry high operational risk during transformation.
  
• Data silos and lack of channel integration In most organizations, various sales channels (brick-and-mortar, e-commerce, mobile apps) operate on separate systems. Customer, inventory, and sales data reside in isolated databases, preventing a unified customer view and real-time product availability updates. As a result, loyalty programs may only function offline, while certain promotions exist exclusively online. This fragmentation makes it impossible to deliver consistent experiences such as personalized offers or omnichannel fulfillment (e.g., “click & collect”), frustrating modern consumers accustomed to seamless interactions.
  
• Lack of Real-Time Inventory Visibility. Inventory management across channels is a challenge for roughly 68% of retailers. Without a “single view of inventory,” a company cannot accurately track real-time stock levels across stores and warehouses. This often leads to situations where customers order products that appear available but are already sold out, resulting in cancellations or substitutions—damaging brand trust. Implementing models such as ship-from-store or click & collect is difficult without accurate, real-time SKU-level data across all locations. Traditional systems lack this capability, creating blind spots in operations.
  
• High Costs and Change Complexity – Omnichannel transformation can be expensive, both financially and operationally. Many large retailers have built custom, tightly integrated solutions over the years that are difficult to extend with new channels. Modernization requires investment in infrastructure, licenses, and integration work—and may cause business disruption during implementation. Boards understandably fear this risk, particularly in low-margin, high-volume industries. For example, one of Poland’s major footwear retailers, despite strong e-commerce results, explicitly highlights in its financial reports the need for cost discipline and further capital investment in logistics and IT to sustain its omnichannel model. Not every company can shoulder this burden immediately, especially those with multi-million investments in legacy systems.

Scalability and Performance Issues. Omnichannel challenges become most evident under heavy load—such as during the holiday season or major sales events like Black Friday. 62% of organizations cite the lack of real-time data processing as a major barrier. Legacy systems designed for batch processing simply cannot keep up with today’s transaction volumes.This results in synchronization delays between channels (e.g., a product sold in-store still appears available online) and overall performance degradation under peak traffic. Monolithic applications are difficult to scale horizontally in the cloud, and scaling vertically (adding more server power) is both costly and inflexible. Moreover, these architectures often lack fault tolerance—if the central system fails, sales across all channels may halt. Thus, IT—once the “heart of the business”—often becomes its bottleneck.

Today we talk about MACH, composable commerce, and event-driven architectures

If traditional systems have become a burden, how can companies evolve beyond them? The answer lies in modern IT architecture based on MACH principles and the composable commerce approach, supported by event-driven data processing. Rather than attempting a risky, all-at-once “revolution,” companies now prefer evolutionary transformation—modernizing one element at a time. The key pillars of this approach include:

• Microservices and MACH Architecture – MACH stands for Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless. In practice, this means building systems from independent services that communicate via APIs, run in the cloud, and are decoupled from the front-end layer. Instead of a single “colossus,” businesses use dozens of smaller services handling specific domains—such as product catalog, inventory, or payment services. 28% of organizations implementing omnichannel already use microservices architectures, as they allow each function to evolve independently and faster. New functionality can be added or modified without disrupting the entire ecosystem. Components can also be purchased as ready-to-integrate services instead of being developed in-house. For example, a company might deploy a new recommendation engine or OMS (Order Management System) module as a standalone service and connect it via APIs.
  
  Experts recommend following the “Strangler Pattern”—gradually replacing parts of the monolith with microservices while keeping the old system operational until each new component is ready. This ensures smooth, low-risk evolution.
  
• Event-Driven Integration and Real-Time Data – Even the best microservices strategy won’t succeed without efficient data exchange. This is where event-driven architecture (EDA) comes into play.
  
  Traditionally, systems like ERP, warehouse, and e-commerce synchronize data periodically—every few hours or once per day. In an event-driven model, changes are propagated instantly, in real time. When a product is sold in-store, the event “Product X sold” automatically updates the central inventory and online store almost immediately. This ensures real-time data consistency across all channels, improving both performance and business outcomes.
  
  In this model, systems no longer rely on direct, point-to-point connections. Each system “listens” for relevant events in a message broker (e.g., RabbitMQ) or event stream (e.g., Kafka). Adding a new service—like a mobile app—requires no major rework; it simply starts publishing and consuming relevant events. Research shows that after adopting microservices with event-driven communication, system response times improve by around 30%, while data-related errors drop by up to 70%—thanks to real-time synchronization. This enables businesses to act on live data: customers see accurate stock levels, order promises are fulfilled, and marketing can instantly react to triggers like abandoned carts or completed purchases.

Such modular, event-driven architecture allows transformation through evolution, not revolution. Legacy systems don’t have to be discarded—they can be surrounded by an API and event “facade,” gradually offloading their functions to modern components. This approach spreads investment over time and reduces operational risk. Standards like MACH, headless architecture, and composable commerce platforms are already proven by industry leaders—resulting in modern, scalable IT ecosystems that grow with the business.

POS as a flexible platform for omnichannel

Modern retail doesn’t need another “sales system.” It needs a flexible, scalable, and easily integrable transaction platform that fits seamlessly into the organization’s omnichannel ecosystem.That’s exactly the role of IXPOS, developed by INEOGroup. It’s not just a POS app—it’s a comprehensive, modern transactional platform that extends existing IT environments with key sales and integration capabilities.

IXPOS is designed by default as an on-premise in-store solution, ensuring full operational independence and business continuity—even during temporary network outages. Its central module can run flexibly—on physical or virtual servers, or in private or public cloud environments. This hybrid design combines local performance with centralized management and integration across the enterprise.

IXPOS architecture follows API-first and event-driven principles, allowing smooth integration with existing middleware platforms. As a result, IXPOS becomes a natural extension of the retailer’s IT infrastructure—cohesive, secure, and ready to operate in complex environments with multiple ERP, OMS, and e-commerce systems.

In practice, IXPOS delivers a set of modern services that fill typical gaps in omnichannel ecosystems:

• IXPOS Fiscal Service – ensures consistent fiscal transaction registration across the entire network. All operations are stored in a central IXPOS repository and made available to other systems via API or RabbitMQ, providing compliance, transparency, and fiscal data security.
• IXPOS Loyalty & Promotion Service – manages loyalty programs and complex promotional rules. Centralized campaign management enables consistent marketing actions across channels (online, POS, mobile) and precise targeting by customer segment.
• IXPOS Gift Card Service – supports both physical and digital gift cards, redeemable across any customer touchpoint.
• IXPOS SFS Service, IXPOS Picking Service, and IXPOS Courier Service – handle order fulfillment processes (click & collect, ship-from-store, courier delivery), leveraging real-time inventory data.
• IXPOS KSeF Service (in development) – will serve as a unified communication layer with Poland’s governmental KSeF (National e-Invoicing System), simplifying e-invoice handling across the organization.

By combining sales, fiscalization, promotions, and logistics into one cohesive platform, IXPOS bridges the operational gaps of omnichannel retail. Real-time data exchange ensures operational consistency and full process visibility across all channels.

In practice, IXPOS can act as the missing link in omnichannel architecture—enabling gradual modernization without replacing existing systems. Where traditional solutions are too rigid, IXPOS brings flexibility, performance, and interoperability. It can be deployed modularly, starting with the most valuable business areas—fiscalization, loyalty, or order fulfillment—and expanded over time. This iterative model perfectly aligns with the MACH philosophy, empowering companies to evolve at their own pace without disruptive overhauls.

IXPOS is not just another POS—it’s a modern transactional ecosystem that connects sales, logistics, fiscalization, and marketing into a single, coherent platform. A practical tool for retail chains seeking to develop their omnichannel strategy efficiently, reliably, and without risk to ongoing operations.

Summary

It’s becoming increasingly clear that omnichannel is no longer optional—it’s a necessity for major retail networks. Polish consumers are rapidly adopting new ways to shop and expect brands to keep up, whether they buy via phone, laptop, or shopping mall. Unfortunately, legacy IT systems, data silos, and organizational inertia still hold many companies back.The good news? Today’s technological approaches—microservices, event-driven architectures, and composable platforms like IXPOS—allow companies to break through these barriers gradually. Instead of a risky revolution, businesses can plan a smart, evolutionary system upgrade, turning technology into an enabler, not an obstacle, to business strategy.

If you feel your IT system is becoming a barrier, reach out to us for a conversation.We’ll gladly share our experience and help chart a path toward a truly omnichannel future for your company.

Sources:

• e-Island (2025), Omni-commerce. I Buy Conveniently 2025 – a summary of the report . Data include 71% (same brand online/offline), 75% (expected presence across all channels).
• EY Poland (2024), Digital Transformation 2024. data: 84% of companies indicate digital transformation as a priority (vs. 38% in 2020).
• Adyen (2023, USA), Retail Report. Data: 61% of customers are more loyal to brands offering to return online purchases to a stationary store (BORIS).